Payment protectionDetails
- Revisions within the package are free.
- If you do not respond within 3 days of delivery, the work is accepted automatically.
The money is reserved when you pay and released only once you accept the work.
Example result
Data analysis: 9 months of bookings at a family-run guesthouse
Key numbers
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Bookings (excl. cancelled) | 251 |
| Room nights sold | 689 |
| Revenue | $78,540 |
| Average rate per night | $114 |
| Cancellation rate | 11.6% (33 of 284) |
| Average stay | 2.7 nights |
Summary by channel
| Channel | Bookings | Share of revenue | Avg. rate | Commission | Net per night |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Booking platforms | 142 | 54% | $109 | 15% | $93 |
| Direct (phone, email, website) | 87 | 38% | $126 | 0% | $126 |
| Local travel agent | 22 | 8% | $102 | 10% | $92 |
Direct guests pay more, stay longer (3.4 nights vs 2.3) and bring $33 more per night after commission than platform guests.
Trends and outliers
- July and August made 41% of revenue; occupancy reached 93%.
- March and April were weakest (occupancy 38%), but weekend nights still sold at 79%: the gap is midweek.
- Cancellations were 19% for platform bookings with free cancellation and 4% for direct bookings with a deposit.
- Outlier: 6 bookings in May at $45 per night. These are all one corporate group with a manual discount; they were kept in totals but flagged.
Findings
- Your most profitable guests are direct, returning guests, yet only 14% of platform guests were invited to book direct next time.
- Midweek in spring is the only real gap; weekends sell themselves.
- Free cancellation on platforms costs about 27 lost nights over 9 months.
Recommendations
- Add a "book direct" card at check-out with a 10% returning-guest rate: still $20 above platform net.
- Create a midweek spring offer (3 nights for the price of 2, Sun–Thu) for March–April.
- Switch platform listings to a non-refundable rate at 8% off alongside the flexible one.
- Track the booking channel for every guest from now on: 17 rows had no channel and were grouped as "direct".
All totals were cross-checked against the monthly sums in your sheet; the difference is $0.
Client: a 12-room guesthouse by a lake, run by two owners Data: 284 booking rows, January to September (date, room type, nights, channel, price paid, cancellation) Question asked: "Which channel and which months actually make us money, and where are we losing it?"
The client and all details are made up.
About this service
A budget is only useful if someone checks it against what was actually spent and earned, line by line, every month. We take your budget and actual figures, calculate variances in money and percent, separate timing differences from real overspending and explain the biggest gaps in plain words. Managers get a report they can read in ten minutes instead of a sheet full of red cells.
What is included
- What you getA variance report by line and month with amounts and percent, the top deviations explained, a split between timing and real variances, and a short list of questions for budget owners; it is an analysis, not financial advice. You get it on the order page and as a Word document, with the tables also as an Excel file (values only, no formulas or charts).
- Variance tableBudget, actual and gap for every line
- Top deviationsThe lines that explain most of the gap
- Timing or realSpending moved to another month or truly over
- Year-end outlookIn Premium: where the year will land at this pace
- Owner questionsWhat to ask each budget holder
How it works
- 1BriefYou attach budget and actuals
- 2AnalysisWe match lines and calculate gaps
- 3ReportYou get the variance report
What we need from you
Your budget and actual figures in one or two Excel or PDF files, or pasted as a table, the period, and a threshold above which a variance matters to you.
We will ask you:
- Is this a company, a department or a project budget?
- Which months should the report cover?
- Above what gap is a variance worth explaining?
- Who will read the report?
Compare packages
| Packages | BasicUp to 30 budget lines$15 | StandardUp to 100 budget lines$35 | PremiumUp to 300 budget lines$69 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Deadline | 1 day | 2 days | 4 days |
| Revisions | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| Budget lines | up to 30 | up to 100 | up to 300 |
| Summary tables | up to 3 | up to 6 | up to 10 |
| Year-end outlook | No | No | Yes |
| Order Basic | Order Standard | Order Premium |
Payment protection
You pay when you order, but the money is released only for accepted work.
- Fixed priceThe package price does not change after you pay.
- The money is reservedWhen you pay, the amount is only reserved. It is released to the service once you accept the work.
- Checked before deliveryEvery result goes through a quality check before it reaches you, and you see it on the order page before accepting it.
- Free revisionsAsk for changes within your brief as many times as the package allows.
- Acceptance after 3 daysIf within 3 days of delivery you neither accept the work nor ask for changes, it is accepted automatically. If you write in the order chat after delivery, the order waits; once we answer, we may start the 3 days again and will say so in the chat.
- Redo or a full refundIf the result does not match your brief and the revisions did not fix it, or the work takes more than twice its deadline, write in the order chat: we will redo the work or refund the payment in full.
Questions and answers
Budget and actual lines have different names. Is that a problem?
Not usually. We match them and list every match we made, so you can correct any we got wrong.
Can you read exports from QuickBooks, Xero or 1C?
Yes, as Excel, PDF with a text layer or CSV. Scanned printouts cannot be read.
Will you tell us where to cut costs?
We point out the lines driving the overspend and questions to ask. Decisions about cuts stay with you; this is not financial advice.